AMD’s CEO Dr. Lisa Su, speaking at CES 2021, unveiled the Ryzen 5000 series mobile processors, bringing the Zen 3 core architecture to laptops, and later teased the soon to be launched 3rd Gen EPYC server processor with up to 64 Zen 3 cores for data center computing. She also announced that AMD will bring its RDNA 2 gaming architecture for PCs and gaming consoles to notebook designs in the first half of 2021.
The technology industry had its challenges in 2020 as it navigated the Covid-19 pandemic globally, said Su. “But it was perhaps one of our most productive years,” she said during her keynote presentation. For AMD, this meant a continued focus on high-performance computing (HPC).
“It was also a year where we experienced first-hand the increasingly important role technology plays in every aspect of our lives,” said Su. “From how we work to how our kids learned to our entertainment to accelerating the pace of our digital transformation, high-performance computing has never been more important in our daily lives or to our future. The world needed us to turbocharge our technology capabilities and our industry delivered wonderfully in so many ways.”
Su said “the pandemic has elevated technology to become an essential part of how we live, work, play, and communicate. And at the center of all this technology, it’s high-performance computing.”
Last year, AMD introduced its first desktop processors with the Zen 3 cores, increasing performance and energy efficiency for PCs, and now it’s bringing the Zen 3 to laptops. AMD announced the AMD Ryzen 5000 series, claiming the fastest processors for gamers and creators and long battery life.
“Now, we designed Zen 3 to scale from ultra-thin notebooks all the way up to super computers,” said Su.
“Our new AMD Ryzen 5000 series mobile processors for ultra-thin notebooks will be a significant step forward in performance and efficiency. With up to eight of our new Zen 3 cores, the AMD Ryzen 5000 series are the best processors in the world for thin and light notebooks,” she said. “Whether you’re running general office productivity applications or more CPU intensive tasks, like video rendering, photo editing, or 3D design, the Ryzen 5000 series actually sets the new bar for leadership performance.”
The Ryzen 5000 series includes the high-performance H-series (for mobile gamers and creators) and ultra-mobile U-series processors. Leading in this category is the Ryzen 5000 H-Series, featuring up to eight cores and 16 threads, with the HX series mobile processors delivering high performance to gamers and creators and the HS processor for ultra-thin and lighter form factors.
AMD’s best ultra-thin notebook processor is the Ryzen 7 5800U, said Su. “It has eight cores and 16 threads with a boost up to 4.4 GHz. All of this while operating within a 15-watt thermal design that’s required for these ultra-thin notebooks.”
In addition to the performance boost, it also delivers on energy efficiency. According to Su, the Ryzen 5000 series offers up to 17 ½ hours of general use and 21 hours of video playback on a single charge. “Now that’s a major jump compared to our previous generation and true all-day battery life.”
The Ryzen 7 5800U also offers up to 16 percent more single-threaded performance and up to 14 percent faster multi-threaded performance compared to the previous generation.
For PC gamers looking for desktop performance in a notebook, AMD also introduced the HX series of mobile processors for gaming notebooks, featuring the same Zen 3 cores as the Ryzen 5000 desktop processors.
The top of the line Ryzen 9 HX processors is the 5900HX that boosts up to 4.6 GHz and the 5980HX that boosts up to 4.8 GHz, both with eight cores and thermal design power of 45 watts or higher, said Su. “They’re also unlocked for overclocking and have higher thermal ratings for sustained performance, which is key for gaming.”
The Ryzen 9 5980HX processor is capable of up to 23% increased single-threaded performance and up to 17% faster multi-threaded performance over the previous generation.
“Gaming notebooks featuring our new HX processors are also capable of delivering smooth gaming experiences when running at 4K at high settings,” she added.
Here’s the lineup:
(Source: AMD) Click for larger image.
Su expects notebook designs powered by the new Ryzen mobile processors will grow by 50 percent in 2021 compared to the Ryzen 4000 series. The first of more than 150 ultra-thin gaming and professional notebooks powered by the Ryzen 5000 series – from PC makers including ASUS, HP, and Lenovo – are expected to be on sale in February.
Sneak peeks
Su also revealed a few details about its upcoming 3rd Gen EPYC processors, code named Milan, for data center computing with up to 64 Zen 3 cores. AMD demoed the 3rd Gen EPYC processor (two 32-core processors) running a weather research & forecast (WRF) simulation side-by-side with two competitors’ highest dual-socket processors. Running a compute-intensive simulation with a large set of climate data to produce a six-hour weather forecast, the 3rd Gen AMD EPYC processors completed the task 68 percent faster than the competition.
“The speed to complete in this case is very important because if the simulation runs faster it means scientists improve the accuracy of the forecast by using a larger data set for the model or running more simulations per day,” said Su.
The 3rd Gen EPYC processor series is expected to launch later in the first quarter of 2021. EPYC processors are designed for server, cloud services, and HPC applications.
AMD also announced that notebook designs using AMD’s RDNA 2 gaming architecture for PC and gaming console products will be available in the first half of 2021. The graphics architecture enables advanced power saving techniques to improve energy efficiency by up to 30 percent per cycle per compute unit and provides up to 30 percent frequency boost at the same power level.
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